Election Day was tainted by complaints of dirty tricks that led to FBI investigations in at least two states, with some voters reporting intimidating phone calls, misleading sample ballots and even an armed man outside a polling place.

Nonetheless, poll watchers said voting across American went relatively well, despite machine malfunctions and long waits in some states.

"For 7,800 jurisdictions in this country, it looked like things came out pretty cotton-pickin' well," said Doug Lewis, executive director of Election Center, an nonpartisan organization of state election officials. "There were some problems, in some states, but overall it looks like all the predictions of disaster turned out wrong."

As polls closed nationwide, one of the worst waits appeared to be in Denver, where hundreds waited long past sunset at beseiged polling centers. They continued to wait, 90 minutes after the 7 p.m. close of voting. It was a miserable end to a day fraught with new voting machine problems and the longest statewide ballot in decades.

"This is positively ridiculous," said Jack McCroskey, who leaned on a cane while waiting to vote. "At 82, I don't deserve to have to stand out here."

Voter intimidation accusations prompted others to claim that some voters were bullied from getting a chance to vote.

In Virginia, the FBI was looking at complaints of an apparently orchestrated series of phone calls in the hard-fought U.S. Senate race between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb. Some voters reported they got calls telling them to stay home on Election Day, or face criminal charges.

The liberal voter group MoveOn.org offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for voter interference, which is a federal crime.

In Indiana, the FBI was investigating allegations that a Democratic volunteer at a polling site in the college town of Bloomington was found with absentee ballots after counting had begun.

Other states reported similar problems.

In Arizona, three men, one of them armed, stopped Hispanic voters and questioned them outside a Tucson polling place, according to voting monitors for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which photographed the incidents and reported them to the FBI.

In Maryland, sample ballots suggesting Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael Steele were Democrats were handed out by people bused in from out of state. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Maryland by nearly 2-to-1.

An Ehrlich spokeswoman said the fliers were meant to show the candidates had the support of some state Democrats. They were paid for by the campaigns of Ehrlich, Steel and the GOP. Some of the fliers include pictures of Ehrlich with Democrat Kweisi Mfume, a former NAACP president.

More than 80 percent of the nation's voters were expected to cast some type of electronic ballot Tuesday, which was the deadline for major reforms mandated by the federal Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress to prevent a rerun of the 2000 election debacle.

In some states, the effort to improve the integrity of the election system got off to a shaky start. Long lines formed, prompting appeals to judges to keep the polls open longer.

Kevin Caffrey, a 43-year-old school teacher from Denver and a registered Republican, was furious after he was forced to stand in line for more than an hour.

"Every individual who put me in line, I'm voting against them. I've been waiting in line like an animal. This is a nightmare," he said.

Some politicians, and their offspring, also were turned from the polls.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters at a campaign stop near her home in Chappaqua that her daughter, Chelsea, had been turned away at a Manhattan polling site because her name did not appear in a book of registered voters. She was offered an affidavit vote, similar to provisional ballots used in other states.

In South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford was sent away away because he didn't have a voter registration card. He went back with the right identification.

Computer glitches and poll workers' unfamiliarity with the new equipment were also blamed for long lines in states including Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina and Illinois.

U.S. District Court Judge Dan A. Polster in Ohio ordered polls stay open until 9 p.m., 90 minutes after closing time, after the Ohio Democratic Party sued Cuyahoga County because of crowded precincts.

Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, suffered 14-hour voting lines in 2004. On Tuesday, problems with ballot-reading machines caused delays of more than an hour. For the first time, all 88 Ohio counties used electronic voting -- either touch-screens or paper ballots that are electronically scanned.